Ethan Hawke and Denzel Washington Team for ‘Magnificent Seven’ Remake

Ethan Hawke and Denzel Washington Team for 'Magnificent Seven' Remake

According to THR, Ethan Hawke is in “final negotiations” to board Fuqua’s “The Magnificent Seven” starring Denzel Washington. Hawke and Washington made box office bank back in 2001’s “Training Day,” which earned both actors Academy Award nominations and Washington an Oscar win for Best Actor.

Screenwriters John Lee Hancock (“Saving Mr. Banks”) and Nic Pizzolatto (a double WGA winner for HBO’s “True Detective”) base their script on Kurosawa’s 1954 “Seven Samurai” written by Kurosawa, Shinobu Hashimoto and Hideo Oguni. That tale of seven samurai banding together to protect a destitute village from blood-seeking bandits was first remade in 1960 as “The Magnificent Seven” directed by John Sturges and starring Steven McQueen.

Chris Pratt and Hailey Bennett also boarded the project, which MGM began developing back in 2012 alongside a spate of other titles from its studio library including the forthcoming “Poltergeist” restart, 2014’s “RoboCop” and imminent remakes of “Death Wish” and “WarGames.”

Among Fuqua’s bevy of directorial projects on the horizon will be the boxing drama “Southpaw” starring Jake Gyllenhaal and slated for Summer 2015 release.